It's taken six days and 43 hours of technical meetings and briefings but NASA has finally concluded that they will ad "Get a closer look" to the list of possible things to do in the coming months. Possible details in 5-9 months.

Prospecting on Mars would suck, too. And people would still sign up for it because there are still worse jobs here. Ah hell, I'd sign up, especially knowing I probably wouldn't be coming back.

You mean that if we free up space exploration for profitable means the market will kick in and actually make it happen? I'm all for it, unless you all want to just keep having NASA send golf carts to distant planets at a negative rate of return.

jars.traptone:LesserEvil: jars.traptone: Lol sorry. There might be fossils on Mars, and there are fossils on Earth, but I'm not one of them, so I don't know what that picture is from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV7Qz640OeM

Lol this is amazing. Seriously, what is this from? Didn't Tom Waits write a song that was close to this?

Saturday Night Live, circa 1978.... pretty famous bit in its day, when guys like Steve Martin and Andy Kaufman were turning standup on its ear (not a lot of people realize Steve Martin's act was actually a parody of standup).

Fizpez:It's taken six days and 43 hours of technical meetings and briefings but NASA has finally concluded that they will ad "Get a closer look" to the list of possible things to do in the coming months. Possible details in 5-9 months.

Jarhead_h:ecmoRandomNumbers: If it's gold, platinum, or titanium, our economy is going to change. A lot.

Prospecting on Mars would suck, too. And people would still sign up for it because there are still worse jobs here. Ah hell, I'd sign up, especially knowing I probably wouldn't be coming back.

You mean that if we free up space exploration for profitable means the market will kick in and actually make it happen? I'm all for it, unless you all want to just keep having NASA send golf carts to distant planets at a negative rate of return.

No, I think it needs to go private. But like a good Democrat, I believe things should be regulated. You can't just have rogue missions off to Mars willy-nilly. Also, there are a lot of things to consider, like WHO owns WHAT? Is that your territory? Are we going to auction it off? Will there be a government? Lots to think about.